Vladimir Putin

Yesterday, I mentioned that Thomas Friedman is taunting Vladimir Putin for being exposed by the drop in oil prices as a “delusional thug” who, with oil tide receding, is now “swimming naked.” Friedman is also taunting conservatives for having been impressed by Putin’s successes, which is rich coming from a columnist who has long been in the tank for Communist China’s one-party rule. Not surprisingly, Friedman misses the point of »

It is not difficult to get a fix on Barack Obama’s view of the world. It is the view of the leftover left that took the side of the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Obama seems not to have changed his views or to have learned anything since his days as a college student in which he performed as a “useful idiot” for the Soviet Union. A year ago, »

I posted the strip below this past January, but it’s time has come around again. It contrasts Barack Obama with Vladimir Putin in an entertaining and (somewhat) instructive way. Why is that man bowing? Those bows are a killer. Late in the Age of Obama, Obama has yet to field a question on the subject. (Jay Carney, of course, denied that he was bowing.) We are left to our own »

How come, people are asking, our vaunted intelligence establishment didn’t foresee Putin’s aggression against the Ukraine? For instance, Politico asks: “A range of lawmakers and intelligence community experts are puzzled about why U.S. intelligence agencies seem to have misjudged Putin’s intentions and whether the lack of warning fits a pattern of other significant intelligence shortcomings in recent years.” How about this for an answer: Our “intelligence community” just isn’t very »

In the course of its excellent editorial on Russia’s invasion of the Crimean peninsula, the Wall Street Journal’s editorialists draw on the readout of Obama’s 90-minute telephone conversation with Barack Obama over the weekend. We posted the White House readout of Obama’s side of the conversation yesterday and linked to the Kremlin readout of its side of the conversation in Russian. The Kremlin readout is posted in English here. This »

The strip below contrasting Barack Obama with Vladimir Putin takes a look back in an entertaining and (somewhat) instructive way. Why is that man bowing? Those bows are a killer. As we enter year 6 of the Age of Obama, Obama has yet to field a question on the subject. (Jay Carney, of course, denied that he was bowing.) We are left to our own devices, and we have a »

I learn through Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal column (behind the Journal’s jealously guarded subscription paywall) that Vladimir Putin’s brilliant New York Times op-ed column stomping on President Obama was written by a public relations firm. (I think Noonan was relying on this post by Times public editor Margaret Sullivan.) In the op-ed Putin goes out of his way to mock Obama in terms calculated perfectly to offend him. For »

I commented here on Vladimir Putin’s patently contemptuous op-ed column in the New York times yesterday. A senior White House official who wisely insisted that his name not be linked to his comment on the column purported to translate it as Putin taking responsibility for Syria’s chemical weapons compliance. Jake Tapper quotes the official: “He put this proposal forward and he’s now invested in it. That’s good. That’s the best »

Furthering his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize, Vladimir Putin steps forth as a prince of peace in the New York Times op-ed column “A plea for caution from Russia.” Putin seeks to inject a dose of sweet reason into what he refers to as “events surrounding Syria.” Putin’s column implicitly characterizes President Obama as something of a cowboy in the sphere of international relations. Putin deems President Obama in »

Vladimir Putin’s proposed resolution to the U.S. confrontation with Syria raises the following question: why did Putin propose it? After all, it seemed increasingly clear that Congress was not going to authorize a strike, thus making it more likely than not that Obama would call the whole thing off. Moreover, if conservative critics of the proposed attack are to be believed, any attack would have been so insignificant as to »

There is a good chance that President Obama will latch on to Vladimir Putin’s proposed resolution to our confrontation with Syria over its chemical weapons. I agree with Scott that the resolution will be more phony than real. In other words, Assad will not turn over his stash of chemical weapons; at best he won’t use them again in this war. Where would this resolution leave us? I think there »